


wherein Clint Barton's Dire Warnings go repeatedly unheard

by irnan



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2012-09-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 05:18:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, un-adhered-to, at any rate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wherein Clint Barton's Dire Warnings go repeatedly unheard

"This," said Clint, "is Not Going To End Well."

  
"Does it ever?" Steve asked curiously. He was leaning interestedly over the yawning pit in front of him. So was Tony. They were both wearing looks that boded ill for everyone: themselves, their teammates, the magic-infested asshole who'd opened up a yawning pit of nothingness in the middle of the Rockefeller Centre ice rink.

  
"I knew a guy who knows a guy whose brother died doing this," said Clint.

  
There was a thoughtful silence.

  
"Oh, well," said Steve at last. "If Clint knew a guy who knows a guy whose brother died doing this, maybe we shouldn't do it."

  
"I agree," said Tony promptly. "The fact that Clint knew a guy who knows a guy whose brother died doing this is a cautionary tale of greatest impact, on a par with Snow White."

  
Clint sighed. "Potholing, I mean. I knew a guy who knows a guy whose brother died potholing."

  
"Nobody's going potholing," said Steve. "Tony's going to fly us down. What the hell's cautionary about Snow White unless you've got a stepmother?"

  
"Fruit," said Tony promptly.

  
"Now you're just being ridiculous," said Clint rudely. "Who'd kiss you, anyway?"

  
"Pepper would kiss him," said Steve fairly.

  
"That's true," said Tony.

  
"She'd slap you first," said Clint.

  
"Contrary to popular opinion, our relationship is not a Florence and the Machine song," said Tony.

  
"Look, are we going down this hole or not?" Steve wanted to know.

  
Tony grinned. "Hop on, Alice."

  
If they'd thought Fury was pissed when they came back up again, it was nothing to the things Pepper said.

  
  
*********

  
  
"It's amazing," Steve announced.

  
"It's a movie," said Bruce. "I've seen prettier street art. Which also has the advantage of not being commercialised santised lowest-common-denominator _crap_."

  
"It's gorgeous," said Steve, ignoring him. "I mean, the look of it, the colours, the textures; there's concept art for it online, did you know? That stuff's gorgeous as well. And just compare the character design to _Snow White_ \- the whole thing's so totally different to a cartoon, just look at the _colours_ -"

  
"OK, look," said Clint. "Cute as this conversation is, Hill's on her way up, and if she catches you three watching Disney movies you will never hear the end of it."

  
"Come on, Barton, it's a work of art," said Steve enthusiastically.

  
"It's _Rapunzel_ ," said Clint, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring.

  
It didn't work. By the time Hill arrived Tony had opened a holoscreen and was explaining 3D-animations while _Tangled_ played in the background and Steve balanced a sketchbook on his knees and got a concentrated furrow between his eyebrows.

  
  
*********

  
  
The main difference between Bruce and Bucky as cooks was that Bruce would try anything; Bucky got inventive within very specific parameters, which mostly involved producing the sort of meals Clint had once heard a British friend of his refer to as pub food. He chose to take that as a compliment, rather than a slur, on his favourite type of cooking. This was why he was perched on a bar stool at the counter eating the odd slice of raw carrot before it went in the savory mince.

  
"Who taught you to cook?" Clint asked curiously.

  
"Girl I used to date," said Bucky easily.

  
"Hmm," said Clint, feeling a bit amused. Bucky was a good guy, which... OK, to tell the truth, he had not been expecting that. At least, he'd expected it of a friend of Steve's, but had always been a bit worried that Natasha's passionate first love, the destruction of which had led her so _neatly_ into the mould the Red Room had wanted for her, would turn out to either a) have been working for the Red Rooms all along or b) be much the same kind of douchebag as Romeo. He wasn't going to apologise for thinking that, but he was aware that it might not have been fair of him.

  
"Betsy Rawley," said Steve, coming up behind him. "Like in _Vanity Fair_."

  
"And you wondered why she didn't like you," said Bucky.

  
Clint grinned.

  
"I didn't like her," said Steve. "She could be... harsh."

  
No, Steve wouldn't like harsh. He could and did work with it, but he would never like it. Clint snagged another bit of carrot. Steve lounged against the counter for another minute in silence; then he said, thoughtfully, "OK then."

  
"Hmm?" said Bucky.

  
"Teach me to cook."

  
Bucky turned to look at him. He could probably kill you with that spatula as efficiently and quickly as with the knife Clint was fairly sure he kept in his boot, even in the Tower - Clint had never seen him barefoot, though even Nat was known to abandon footwear here, in their home.

  
It had only been a couple months. They had time, all of them.

  
"Teach you to cook."

  
"Yeah," said Steve.

  
"Bruce hasn't already?"

  
Steve looked amused. Clint hid a wince. "No."

  
"Hmm." Bucky looked at him for another minute. "Oh, all right then."

  
"This," said Clint, now the moment had passed, "is going to end either in tears, food poisoning, or spontaneous combustion."

  
"You know where the door is," said Steve.

  
"I don't know how you got this old without learning to cook anyway."

  
"Chronic exhaustion," said Bucky. "I was usually the only one awake to do it."

  
"That's an exaggeration," said Steve. "I used to draw instead. Sold some, too."

  
"Supplementary income, that's a good excuse to get out of chores," Clint agreed. "And now you're Captain America, so technically -"

  
Steve ignored him. The shephard's pie wasn't too bad, actually.

  
  
*********

  
"I propose regular matches," said Thor.

  
"Oh God, oh God, we're all gonna die," said Clint immediately. "Jarvis, call SHIELD, order an evacuation of the Tower, order the evacuation of _Manhattan_."

  
Bruce went from horrified to irritated to thoughtful in the space of a heartbeat. "Why? He doesn't really like you, Thor."

  
"I cannot imagine why," said Thor cheerfully. He had the same towering, impervious self-confidence as Tony sometimes. "It would be but an experiment."

  
"In what?" said Bruce, suspiciously.

  
"Everybody dying," said Clint. "Didn't I say that already?"

  
"You shut up," said Bruce. "In what, Thor?"

  
Thor shrugged. "Call it control, call it battle, whatever you wish," he said easily. "I told Coulson once that in my youth I courted war. War itself is an easy habit to rid oneself of. Fighting is not."

  
"Being an übermortal adrenaline junkie isn't going to help you against the Hulk, buddy," said Clint.

  
"You've been talking to Tony," Bruce accused Thor.

  
"On the subject of learning to control the power we wield," said Thor calmly, "Tony and I understand each other well."

  
Bruce sighed.

  
"It is an offer, Bruce, no more."

  
"I feel like I'm being tag-teamed," said Bruce.

  
"You are," said Clint instantly. "Tag-teamed to destruction!"

  
"Even I am aware that that sentence makes no sense," said Thor. "Bruce, if you were not considering it, you would not still be here."

  
Bruce folded his hands together, propped his elbows on the table, and rested his forehead against his hands. The slump of his shoulders managed to be at once dejected and thoughtful; his hair had grown out some and fell untidily forwards.

  
Clint was a marksman. Waiting patiently for your target to maneuovre itself into the line of fire was his entire schtick.

  
"I don't see how brooding over it is going to help," he announced. "Either you leave now and the world is saved or you agree and doom us all."

  
"Screw you," snapped Bruce, temper straining. _That's my secret, Cap: I'm always angry_. "All right. All right, fine. We'll try. _Once_."

  
  
*********

  
  
"I told you not to use your powers for evil," said Natasha later on.

  
"No," said Clint. "I told you not to use yours for evil. Which includes wandering around the Tower in your pyjamas trying to make Pepper jealous."

  
"That's not what I'm doing," said Natasha. "And, amazingly, you know it."

  
Clint sighed. He did, he really did, and he hadn't even gotten a rise out of her. One day he'd manage it. "Your proclivity for weirdly-set up traps aside -"

  
"Battle's one thing," said Natasha.

  
"Hey," said Clint. "You're trying to find out where the boundaries are. Which, you know, I wouldn't mind figuring that out myself, every time I think we're firmly inside all that happens is that I get a panic attack that I'm delusional. But if you push too hard too soon this'll fall apart."

  
"It's not normal, though, is it," said Natasha. "Bruce said it felt like college all over again, like living in dorms. Well, I've never lived in a dorm, but even I'm pretty sure that this is starting to go kind of beyond dormlike."

  
"College kids in dorms go to classes and get drunk together," said Clint, shrugging. "We save the world and get drunk together."

  
Natasha fell back against the couch and flung her hands up. "Which is the more formative bonding experience, kids? Answers after the break; get your snacks and come right back!" Then she climbed to her feet.

  
"Where you goin'?"

  
"Ice cream. Steve's."

  
"In your _pyjamas_?"

  
"I'm wearing a Captain America shirt, what's he gonna say?"

  
Clint groaned.

  
  
*********  
  
"You are never going to get that in elevator," said Clint.

  
"It's a disassembled bed," said Bruce, sounding harrassed. "What am I supposed to do, ask for a helicopter? How did Tony get all his stuff up there if not by elevator?"

  
"Bruce," said Betty. "Tony flies."

  
There was a brief silence.

  
"It occurs to me that if furniture shopping is the kind of thing that sets you on edge I should be beating a quick retreat round about now," said Clint.

  
"No, no, not at all," said Betty, biting back a grin. "After all, there's only one elevator."

  
"I'll climb," said Clint.

  
They both looked at him.

  
"I'm Spider-Man?"

  
"You're annoying," said Betty. "Shoo."

  
The elevator arrived; there followed several minutes of shuffling and swearing and sliding large rectangular cardboard boxes around until finally half the boxes were safely stashed and the last one hung out by about five centimetres no matter how they turned and cursed and wedged it in corners diagonally across the elevator, looking doleful and, by now, rather battered. Bruce was crouched below the thing, be the elevator door; Betty was leaning against it at the back.

  
Clint stepped back and snapped a picture on his phone.

  
"It _is_ like college all over again," said Betty. "Remember how Sam Parker insisted on wedging that couch from the yard sale in a corner of your room and you couldn't get it up the stairs?"

  
"I saw that episode of _Friends_ ," said Clint.

  
"It was pretty much exactly like that," said Betty. "Except worse, because the couch stayed there for _six months_. By the time they got around to taking it down no one in the house could remember how to get up the stairs without climbing over it anymore."

  
"On the whole, Dr Ross, I would prefer it if Agent Barton would simply call and request Sir's help," said Jarvis, sounding as horrified as an AI could sound.

  
Jarvis ended up having to explain things to Tony himself, as the others were all laughing too much.

  
  
*********

  
  
"I wouldn't go in there if I were you," Clint said cheerfully.

  
"OH FOR GOD'S SAKE," Pepper yelled. "ALL OF YOU OUT NOW!"

  
Over the echoes of the door slamming they could hear Tony laughing, because he was a jerk who had no shame glands.

  
  
*********

  
  
"This was meant to be a response team," said Fury. "Not a permanent outfit. Going in, you knew that - everyone knew that, and if they didn't they were being naive. This - the Tower, living together - you're permanently attached to each other's coattails. This is turning into something else entirely."

  
Clint shifted in his seat. "The trouble you're having is that it's something you can't control. Sir."

  
Fury tilted his head at him sharply. "Is it, Agent Barton?"

  
Clint grinned. "You're talking about an outfit run by Captain America - have you _read_ his service record? - and Tony fucking Stark, Sir. Plus, you never had any authority over Thor except experience of Midgard. You couldn't hold Tasha if you tried, and if you tried you'd only convince her it was time to go. And Bruce... well."

  
"And then there's you," said Fury.

  
"And then there's me."

  
"Picking sides, Agent?"

  
"Depends," said Clint. "Are you making me?"

  
"Ah," said Fury.

  
"Sorry, Sir."

  
"No, you're not."

  
"A little. But not by much."

  
Fury sighed. "I guess this was what the Council was afraid of. Well, Agent Barton..." He paused to rub his hands together, considering the problem from every angle. "Consider your recommendation taken on board."

  
Clint stood up. "By whom, sir?"

  
Fury didn't answer him. Clint snorted; then he wandered out. It was almost lunchtime, and if he got out of HQ now he could pick up food and be home in time to eat with the others before they all disappeared for the afternoon. Steve was going to the Met, and Natasha had volunteered to help Pepper with... something..., and Tony was supposed to be flying to DC to pick up Jim Rhodes.

  
Clint was looking forwards to this weekened. He had a feeling the good Colonel's company would be worth his weight in _gold_ , catching himself on the verge of whistling gleefully as he left the building.


End file.
